Nicole J Simms/ August 21, 2019/ Blog/ 0 comments

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I’m Back … Sort Of

I’m back! Well, sort of. Wow, it’s been a long time since I wrote my last post. What happened? Where did I go? The simple answer is I was unwell.

I have things called cavernomas in my brain. Cavernomas are clusters of abnormal blood vessels that resemble a raspberry. They are filled with blood and can sometimes bleed. When they bleed, they can cause a range of symptoms, such as headaches, seizures, vertigo, numbness, stroke, plus many more. Well, at the end of March a new cavernoma bled (I have multiple). This is the second time one of them has bled — the first happened 14 years ago — and resulted in me experiencing numbness on the left side of my body (right side of face), vertigo, loss of balance, memory issues, I became partly deaf in my left ear, and many other things — I’m not going to bore you with it all.

So, I was forced to stop everything I was doing and rest — resting is not something that comes naturally to me, but when it comes to your health, you have to allow yourself time to recover.

So, that’s what I was doing over the last four months. I’m a lot better than I was, but I still have some way to go before I’m back to my old self — the working like a robot and dancing like a fairy self.

Now, even though I have been resting, I’ve still tried to work on my writing projects. I’m not able to spend long on the computer — I can only tolerate an hour before my brain aches — so, sadly, I’ve not been able to start editing my flash fiction collection or my novel. Not working on my novel has been hard for me because I wanted to finish editing it this year, but at the moment, I don’t have the brainpower to work on it. I was also hoping to publish my flash fiction collection this Halloween, but because I haven’t started on my editing yet, it’s looking unlikely that I will publish it this year. Before I became ill, I was planning my second novel, but due to the complexity of the plot, I’ve not been able to work on that either — so much for drafting two novels this year.

So, what have I been doing? Let’s get on to something positive. I’ll start with the big positive: I published my first e-book, The Book of Drabbles – A Collection of 100-Word Stories. Luckily I was close to publishing before I became ill, so I didn’t have too much to do to publish the book. However, it did take me a lot longer than it should have, but I’m proud to say that I’m now an indie author. You can download the book for FREE, and if you do, please can you leave a review.

Due to having a published book, I was able to turn my Goodreads profile into a Goodreads Author profile — another proud moment. So, if you’re on Goodreads, follow me, I’ll hopefully have more books for you to enjoy soon.

I’ve also decided to make use of my experience of dealing with vertigo to create a character for a novella — having vertigo can cause patterns to move and for objects to look like they’re crawling across the floor, scary times. So, I thought it would be good, and it would make it scarier, to have a character with vertigo dealing with some supernatural stuff. The novella is an extension of a short story I wrote. I’m doing okay with the planning so far, and I can see myself drafting the story, at least, this year. I’m also working on story ideas for my next flash fiction collection, which will be a book of fantasy stories.

South Portland Street Suspension Bridge, Glasgow

[South Portland Street Suspension Bridge, Glasgow]

I’ve been keeping quite busy, but it’s not been all work and no play. Two weeks ago I went on a Scottish adventure. My mom and I went to Glasgow, Edinburgh and on the Jacobite Steam Train. It was a fascinating trip, which I believe will inspire many future stories. I’ll tell you all more about this trip in a future post, hopefully not too far in the future.

Now my e-book is published, I’m working on promoting the book and me as an author. I have a lot of work to build my author brand, but I’m taking things one step at a time.

Becoming ill again has reminded me how important our health is. We should never take being healthy for granted because it can suddenly be taken away from you. Thankfully, I’m recovering, and I’m hoping I will soon be able to get back to my many writing projects — I do miss working on them. But first, I must focus on keeping myself well and resting when I need to rest. Another thing I’ve learned is that I do need to be more patient with myself — it’s okay to work at a slower pace. I have to keep reminding myself of this in the hopes that it will eventually sink in.

I hope you’re all well, and if you’re a writer, I hope you’re still chasing that dream. I’m not sure when I’ll blog again, but I’m hoping it won’t be another four months. But for now, take care of yourself. Remember, you only have one body to live in.

‘It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.’ — Gandhi

And before I forget, you can find my latest ‘Setting Self-Doubt on Fire’ posts at the links below:

Let’s Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway in 2019

The Female Horror Author Reading Challenge

Keep writing, folks!

Oh, and before I go, if you want email alerts of my latest posts, then please subscribe. And don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter, Goodreads or like my Facebook page. I’ve also created a Nicole J Simms YouTube channel. On my channel, I will be sharing videos of my performances, trips, writing group adventures and my stories. You can also download my e-book The Book of Drabbles for FREE, so check it out.

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